In May of 2018 I stopped taking hormonal birth control. If I had known better back then I would have never taken birth control pills in the first place. Not that I believe it necessarily had an affect on my fertility but that is a debate for another time. As I am sure many other women are told supposedly the first month or so after coming off of the pill is a “very fertile” time. Well that “very fertile” time came and went and I was not pregnant. Even though I've always wanted to be a mom, deep down I am not sure I was 100% ready to be at the time. I was not doing any tracking so I was not concerned that anything was wrong, nor was I completely surprised that I was not pregnant. I knew enough to know it was not as easy as we were led to believe in high school health class to get pregnant.
Tracking My Cycle
A few months later I started tracking via Natural Cycles. I highly recommend getting to know your cycle (made easier with Natural Cycles or something similar) to all women. I did have an adjustment period to get in the habit of taking my temperature before getting up for the day. Leave your thermometer on your nightstand or somewhere within easy reach, maybe even on top of your phone, to help you remember. I tried the Ava bracelet for a period of time too, worn at night it eliminates the need to take your temperature first thing. If you keep forgetting to take your temperature give Ava a try. We had a lot going on in that first year of trying to get pregnant, we were planning a wedding and getting everything in line to start building the house. I was not too concerned about not getting pregnant because of everything going on. And if I am completely being honest the timing would have been tough. Once the wedding was over and we had broken ground on the house we started to get more serious about figuring out why I wasn’t pregnant yet. In fall of 2019 all of my blood work came back normal and indicated good ovarian reserve despite my age (40). I did have a fibroid that we decided to remove (women can and do get pregnant with fibroids but it was causing some cramping).
Testing and Results
At the beginning of 2020 Cody did his first semen analysis and that is when we started to see a clearer picture of what was going on, his motility and morphology were both low. I can remember reading the report and worry starting to sink in. He would do two more SA tests and other than my own analysis of the results via google, we were not given instructions other than "he should drink more water" as a way to fix the problem. When I went back to read paperwork (between the doctors) they mention he has teratozoospermia, but as far as we knew at the time they diagnosed us with “unknown infertility”. It leads me to wonder why doctors are so quick to say something is wrong with a woman but less direct when it comes to men on this infertility journey. Regardless of their assessment, I took matters into my own hands, diving into research of supplements and lifestyle changes to help us both be at optimal health for whatever was next.
